In general terms, “network link analysis” explores associations between objects communicating on a network. In the broadest sense of such analysis, the network can be any type of communications network. It may be a data network, such as the Internet, a radio network, or a spoken network.
Examples of applications of network link analysis are investigations by law enforcement agencies, by telecommunication network operators, by the medical sector in epidemiology and pharmacology, and by search engines for relevance ratings. A particular type of link analysis is the process of observing network communications to determine who is communicating with whom.